There are a number of home schooling resources available for parents who want to supplement a packaged curriculum or build their own from scratch.

No matter which camp you are in, you are going to need some curriculum supplements. You can get workbooks, motivational tools, bulletin board supplies and more online.

The best part of buying online is that it is convenient and easy. You can shop any time of the day or night and find just what you need.

Another factor to consider is that when you buy online, you can compare products and prices. That way, you’ll get the best value for the money. Home schooling can get very expensive with all of the add ons unless you are careful with the money you spend.

A third benefit is that you can pick products which match your values. No matter what your religion (or lack thereof), you can find home schooling resources which emphasize your values.

Fourth, if your curriculum lacks certain elements that you want to emphasize, you can easily supplement it with resources you find through online suppliers. For instance, if you want your children to put on a science fair, you can easily find books and workbooks to help you do it.

Finally, you will find a wide variety of materials. If you go to the bricks and mortar school supply shop in your town, they will only be able to carry a limited supply because of space considerations. This is not an issue on the internet. You can literally buy any product that is on the market when you shop on the internet. » Read more: Home Schooling Resources – Curriculum Supplements Available Online

A Project Guide gives directions and possibilities to a child on how to pursue their project. At the same time, it weaves a variety of learning objectives into the project activities. These learning objectives enhance and enrich the project, making it more memorable to the child.

When I was a middle school child, I made several attempts at building a go-cart. None of those attempts was successful. I paid a welder to do some welding; my plan did not work and my money was lost. My most successful contraption pitched me onto the asphalt, leaving me bloody, because I had not considered “play” in the wheels and breaking requirements. Yet I remember what I did learn from those attempts far more vividly than anything in “school.”

What if I had been presented with a guide, back then in the ’60s, and told that my creative desire to construct a go-cart out of anything I could get my hands on was my schooling and that there were some physics and measurement realities I needed to consider in order to end up with a successful go-cart. What if I had also been given some reading about making go-carts and had been asked to write a report and share with others my go-cart project. And that I could do all that instead of sitting in a boring desk all day? In fact, what if there were educational money I could access to make the whole thing work?

There is no question that I would have reached much further than I actually did, and learned far more, most of which would be remembered today.

Parents should treat the guides as guides, not as controls. A child may take the project in directions not found in the guide. Great! Maybe parts of the guide are a bit much for a particular child. Feel free to scale them back; but to ensure a breadth of learning, don’t eliminate those parts.

As you work with the guides, you will discover that they are very flexible. The guides can easily be adapted from one child to the next or from one part of the country to the next. A simple bit of Internet research can replace those things that are not useful to your family with things that are. Because you have the guide already, you know exactly what to look for when you make changes. » Read more: How Parents Should Use Project Guides